The Galway Film Fleadh, now in its 22nd year, has a promising line-up, but not a very jolly one (Irish fare includes films about midlands escort agencies and recovering addicts). If that gets too much, Toy Story 3 and a strand about love provide levity, writes DONALD CLARKE
CAN THE Galway Film Fleadh really be closing in on its quarter century? In truth, such is the firmness of the festival’s place in the calendar, it seems somewhat surprising it is so young. Poised equidistant between the Corona Cork Film Festival and the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, the Fleadh appears to have been defining the cinematic summer for centuries. Always flush with as many new Irish features as the economic circumstances will allow, it is to the domestic industry as the Henley Regatta is to boats. (The analogy is encouraged by the fact that so much fleadh socialising takes place in an actual rowing club.)
The 22nd event finally gets round to celebrating one of the festival’s most significant shapers. Producer Lelia Doolan, described as an “apocrocrypt” (whatever that means) by Bob Quinn in the programme, will be publicly interviewed within one manifestation of her drive and enthusiasm: the Cinemobile travelling cinema. Expect unmediated opinions.
Other special guests receiving tributes this year include Stephen Daldry, director of The Readerand Billy Elliott; Ronald Harwood, the recently knighted writer of The Pianistand The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; and the durable actor Annette Bening, whose new film, The Kids Are All Right, will receive its Irish premiere at the fleadh.
The festival can claim some credit for its own opening film. For the past few years, the festival has hosted a pitching competition – this year’s takes place on Sunday, July 11th – during which writers attempt to sell their script in 500 carefully chosen words. In 2005, the winner of the award was Will Collins with his idea about three brothers’ efforts to replace their dying father’s watch.
Now, directed by Paul Fraser, a key collaborator of Shane Meadows's, the film arrives as My Brothers. Following a perilous journey via South America, during the great volcanic ash debacle, the picture recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in lower Manhattan.
World premieres of Irish features – there are eight in total – include Tom Hall’s already controversial Sensation. Filmed in and around Bray, Co Wicklow, last summer, the picture stars Domhnall Gleeson as a young farmer who sets up an “escort agency” in some grim part of the midlands. The director mentions Todd Solondz as an influence.
Ian Power, director of several excellent short films, turns to features with The Runway. The picture, which stars Damian Bichir and Kerry Condon, focuses on a young boy who, having learned Spanish from a Linguaphone tape, becomes the mediator between the citizens of an Irish town and a stranded Colombian pilot.
Patrick O'Donnell, recent winner of a best actor gong at the Dublin Film Festival, appears in Colin Downey's spooky-sounding dark fantasy The Looking Glass. Already an experienced cinematographer, Downey is – like O'Donnell – known for his collaborations with spirited independent director Ivan Kavanagh. The programme notes (rather intriguingly) nod in the direction of animators such as Jan Švankmajer and The Brothers Quay. Heady stuff.
Another Irish premiere worth attending is PJ Dillon's Rewind. Also an experienced director of photography – he shot The Runway– Dillon casts Amy Huberman as a recovering drug addict whose new life is disrupted by the arrival of an old boyfriend. The picture plays in the late-night slot reserved for riskier, more viscera-drenched material.
Also look out for Robert Quinn's Na Cloigne, which has to do with "naked and decapitated bodies"; Sean Cuthbert's and Paul Farren's Where the Sea Used to Be, a dark comedy of drink and brotherhood; and Risteard O'Domhnaill's The Pipe, a documentary on the controversy surrounding Shell's conflict with the people of Rossport. That last film, focusing on the oil company's efforts to pump gas to the mainland, seems all the more relevant following recent developments in the Gulf of Mexico.
Fiona Geraghty's Come On Eileensounds like an interesting diversion. Despite shooting cheaply on Super-16, Geraghty managed to lure such luminaries as Keith Allen, Julia David and the great Freddie Jones into her realist drama.
All in all, it looks as if the current gloom may have caught up with Irish film-makers. The days when every second domestic film concerned pastel-coloured people pogoing in penthouse parties already seem impossibly distant. It’s a very promising line-up, but it’s not a particularly jolly one.
Fret not. The fleadh has made sure to include a big mainstream release to fire those parts of the brain that respond to bright lights and wild times. Pixar's Toy Story 3, the already highly praised follow-up to a pair of animation classics, will receive a gala screening at which Lee Unkrich and Darla K Anderson, respectively director and producer, are to receive the annual Galway Hooker award. (As we explained last year, smart alec, a "hooker" is actually a type of boat.)
Animation will also be showcased, in the Irish premiere of one of 2010's most hotly awaited films. Recipient of ecstatic reviews at the recent Edinburgh Film Festival, The Illusionist, Sylvain Chomet's follow-up to Belleville Rendez-vous, is based on a hitherto unfilmed Jacques Tati script concerning a struggling magician and his poorly behaved rabbit. The Wednesday evening screening should be a hot ticket.
Events close with the Irish premiere of Hollywood's latest attempt to get to grips with the continuing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Oren Moverman's The Messengeruncovers a rather ingenious vehicle for its examination: the US officers who have to deliver bad news to the families of recently bereaved soldiers. Woody Harrelson, Oscar-nominated for his performance, appears as the operative assigned this sombre detail.
Happily, the fleadh authorities have noticed the sense of gloom overlying cultural affairs and have decided to offer further counterbalances.
“After a year of recession, bankruptcies, cynicism and financial scandal, we decided to focus on something money can’t buy: love,” managing director Miriam Allen and festival programmer Felim Mac Dermott write in their programme notes. “Hence we will host a sidebar entitled Five Aspects of Love.”
It's a canny idea. As the title suggests, the season takes different classes of love and discovers a film that illustrates each: fraternal love is exercised in David Lynch's The Straight Story; love of art emerges through Michael Powell's The Red Shoes; love of food brings us (what else?) Babette's Feast.
Allow the warm glows to alleviate the economic chill.
The 22nd Galway Film Fleadh runs from July 6-11. galwayfilmfleadh.com
